Gallery: Here’s What Your Internet Friends Did #WhileTwitterWasDown

Today our world was plunged into darkness — digital darkness — when Twitter just crapped out. In place of a Fail Whale was just a string of code with the depressing message that “Twitter would be back by <deadline>,” so not even the folks in charge knew when we’d be able to get back online. At first we thought maybe it was the angry Beliebers trying to get back at Drake Bell, or Kristen Stewart‘s people trying to eliminate all of her bad press in one fell swoop. But the scariest part was that we didn’t know why it happened.

I’m not gonna lie, it got pretty post-apocalyptic during those pulse-pounding hours. Like, The Hunger Games levels of dystopia. We were minutes away from converting our conference room into a makeshift Arena when, without any fanfare, Twitter just started working again. So, I bet you’re dying to know how those hundreds of people you’ve never met but enjoy their wry daily observations and artsy Instagram pics handled their forced log-off. Because of course#WhileTwitterWasDown immediately became a hashtag, here are the best responses.

Who knows! Maybe you’ll be so tickled by these tweets that you’ll find a whole new bunch of folks to follow.